


Eridan: Save the seadweller grub

by JennaJay



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-11 02:08:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11704602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JennaJay/pseuds/JennaJay
Summary: Eridan saves a seadweller grub and winds up getting just a little attached.





	Eridan: Save the seadweller grub

Eridan: Save the seadweller grub

 

Eridan sat on the branch of a tree and scowled through the scope of his rifle. The moons reflected green and purple off a calm still bay. Beside it, light poured out of a mansion’s indigo-tinted windows. He had heard a rumor that some higher-blooded landwellers were selling grubs here. They probably thought that just because they were a little higher on the hemospectrum than most, they had the right to do anything they wanted. It made him sick.

Now, selling grubs wasn’t illegal or even necessarily uncommon. Many trolls liked to have their grubsauce fresh or homemade, so capturing live grubs to sell was a profitable, if unsavory, business. 

Of course, something so trivial as landwellers selling landweller grubs wouldn’t have brought Eridan here in the first place. No, he was here because word had reached his ears that seadweller grubs were being sold. 

Seadweller grubs were considered a bit of a delicacy on Alternia. Those that could afford them ate them breaded, fried, sometimes even raw. In some circles, their tails were even said to add decades, if not centuries, to a troll’s natural lifespan.

Of course, that didn’t make it any less disgusting that landwellers would dare to eat seadwellers. So, naturally, Eridan was going to right this injustice.

His custodian snorted beside him and he made a shushing motion. “Calm dowwn,” Eridan said. “It’ll be easy. I’ll just stop the sale and kill the landwwellers.” He dropped from the tree and shouldered Ahab’s crosshairs, making his way silently to the mansion.

He sprinted from tree to tree and bush to bush, making sure to keep himself out of sight of the doors or windows of the mansion. He had almost reached the front of the mansion when a voice called out, “Hey, you, what’re you doing there?”

Eridan tensed. They couldn’t be talking to him, right? He was hidden.

“Ey, behind the bushes! Come on out!”

Eridan glanced around, hoping that whoever it was wasn’t talking to him. When he found no one, he sighed and came out of hiding, stepping over a few bushes and into the open space in front of the mansion. He pulled Ahab’s Crosshairs to his chest. It seemed like he would have to use it sooner than he had planned.

Indigo-tinted light shone from the windows, making the blue symbol on the troll’s shirt stand out against the black fabric. His long horns perpendicular to his head gave the impression that someone might have jabbed an orange spike through his skull. He looked to be a few sweeps older than Eridan. Probably about ready to leave the planet. The troll gave a smile and a wave. Definitely not the reaction he was expecting.

“Oh, let me guess, you wanted to see what all the older trolls were up to, but you were to scared to actually try to come inside.”

“Y-yeah, that’s right,” Eridan said. The stupid landweller had actually made up an excuse for him.

“Well, come on,” the landweller gestured to the door of the mansion. “No need to be so shy, now.”

Eridan squared his shoulders. That’s right. He was a seadweller. He could go wherever he pleased. The landwellers didn’t have any idea what was in store for them. There was no reason for him to hide. He turned to the double doors of the mansion and opened both of them, wincing a little at the bright light inside the house. 

Once his eyes had adjusted, he scanned the area, searching for the grub. He spotted its purple form curled up in a wire cage, sitting on a desk next to a scarred rustblood. He made his way over to it, shoving past trolls who were gawking at other things for sale and earning himself more than a few annoyed glances in the process.

The rustblood glanced up as he approached her. Her tall, tightly coiled horns standing tall above her head. He wondered for a moment if they’d squish down like a spring if he pressed them before remembering that he had a job to do here. A sword rested against the rustblood’s leg. It wouldn’t be much of an issue, assuming Eridan was quicker with his weapon than she was with hers.

“So, you’re interested in the grub, huh?” She asked.

Eridan nodded.

“How much will you pay for it?”

Eridan tapped his chin like his was actually considering a price. “I’m wwillin to pay about...EAT MY AHAB’S CROSSHAIRS, LANDWWELLER.” He grabbed the grub’s cage with one hand and fired his gun at the rustblood with the other. She fell to the ground, the energy from the gun having ripped a hole in her torso.

He gently but quickly placed the grub’s cage on the floor between him and the desk, holding his gun out and firing into the crowd of trolls. There was a stampede for the exits and within the minute, all the trolls had either run away or lay dead on the ground, their blood staining the walls and floor a rainbow of colors.

Footsteps sounded from a staircase and a troll poked his head out past the railing to see what had happened. “Oh, man. This is very, very not good. I’ll never hear the end of it when my lusus gets home!”

Eridan aimed his gun at the troll and fired, but the troll ducked upstairs. Eridan debated going after him, but decided it wasn’t worth the effort for just one landweller, especially one who posed no immediate threat.

He grinned and walked to the door, patting himself on the back for a job well done when he heard a clanging of metal and a gurgling-cooing noise from behind him. He stopped and turned around. The grub was still sitting in its cage on the ground where Eridan had set it. It bumped its head against the metal wires of the cage, almost like it was making a halfhearted attempt to escape its prison.

He should probably set the grub free, but if it was here that must have meant that its lusus was either lost or dead. It wouldn’t survive long without it, even if Eridan did free it. He sighed and picked up the cage. He would drop it in the ocean. It could either fend for itself or die. 

Once he left the mansion, he waved to the tree where he knew his lusus was hiding. After a few moments of anxious waiting, the lusus soared up out of the trees and flew over to Eridan’s side.

“Thanks for wwaitin,” he said. “I’m gonna take care of this grub here, then wwe can head home.”

He walked to the bay, the grub’s cage tucked snugly under his arm. The moonlit sand crunched beneath his shoes and the familiar smell of salty air blew across his face. He stopped at the edge of the water, waves occasionally lapping across the tips of his shoes. He gently took the grub out of the cage and held it up to the moonlight, finally taking a proper look at it.

The grub took one look at his face and smiled. It actually smiled! It made that gurgling-cooing noise that Eridan had heard it make before, and the fins on the side of its head fluttered back and forth, almost like miniature wings. It flicked its pale purple tail back and forth, and squealed with delight when Eridan held it close to his face.

Suddenly, Eridan realized that he couldn’t just abandon the grub here to fend for itself. He couldn’t just throw the lusus-less grub into the ocean where predators would find it a tasty snack. The landwellers were ready to kill the grub just for a little snack, and, like it or not, Eridan had taken responsibility for this grub’s life by saving it. He wouldn’t stoop to the landwellers’ level, and he wouldn’t discard the life of a fellow seadweller so easily.

Eridan sighed and pulled the grub to his chest. “I’m probably gonna regret this,” he muttered, but he turned and walked back to where his lusus was waiting. 

“Let’s head back to the hivve noww,” Eridan said as he positioned himself on the lusus’s back, the seadweller grub nestled securely in his arms.

**Author's Note:**

> Please tell me if I did anything wrong here, especially with Eridan's characterization. I live for constructive criticism.


End file.
